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influential.”
    Elan glanced briefly at Vergere and once more squeezed her hand. “What sort of gods do these Jedi worship?” she asked.
    “None to speak of. Rather, they draw spiritual strength from a pervasive reservoir of energy known as the Force.”
    “And you have some strategy for subverting or nullifying this Force?”
    “At the moment, no. However, there may be something we can do about the Jedi.”
    Harrar indicated the stranger at the foot of the stairs. “Elan, this is one of our field agents, Executor Nom Anor. Aside from being instrumental in helping secure a foothold in the Outer Rim, Nom Anor has managed to recruit agents from among the native populations and carry out many acts of sabotage and subversion. He is taking time out from his usual duties to oversee a project he and I have planned.”
    Elan leveled an appraising gaze at Nom Anor as he climbed the stairs to stand before her. Slender and of medium height, he was ordinary-looking, even with the facial markings and broken facial bones that attested to more than the usual sacrifices. Somewhere along the way, he had either lost or purposely surrendered an eye. Though the socket was a black aperture just now, Elan could discern that the bones had been reconfigured to house a plaeryin bol—the venom-spitting organ that resembled an eyeball.
    “Dressed in an ooglith masquer, this one could easily pass for a human,” she whispered to Vergere.
    “He’s an ambitious one, Mistress,” Vergere whispered back. “Take care.”
    Nom Anor bowed to Harrar, though not as deeply as he might have.
    “Before the invasion commenced, and as a means of testing what we were up against,” Nom Anor said, “Iseeded several worlds with a variety of illness-producing spores of my own design. One class of spores—a coomb variant—met with success, causing some one hundred individuals to fall ill and die, save for one—a human female Jedi Knight. Neither self-propagating nor contagious, the malady has not spread to the other Jedi.”
    Nom Anor scrutinized Elan. “By all accounts the human remains gravely ill, but she has thus far managed to survive, I assume by drawing on the Force. Her resistance, however, is a blessing in disguise, for I feel certain that we can make use of it to get close to the Jedi.”
    “Infiltrate them, you mean?” Elan said.
    “Assassinate them,” Harrar answered from his cushion. “Or at least, as many as possible.”
    Nom Anor nodded. “Such an event would prove demoralizing to countless populations. If even the Jedi could be brought down, what hope could there be for the rest? Confidence in the Jedi and the Force would be dealt an irreversible blow. Worlds would begin to capitulate without a fight. Supreme Overlord Shimrra could be apprised that our mission has been executed ahead of schedule, and that we await his coming.”
    Elan looked from Harrar to Nom Anor and back again. “What part am I to play in all this?”
    The priest moved forward, until he was hovering before her. “One for which a priestess of the deception sect is uniquely suited.”

FOUR
    Han stood on the brink, with the tips of his knee-high black boots projecting over the edge of the natural bridge. The voices of his friends were distant enough to be indistinct. Fog that had clung to the giant trees all morning was falling like fat drops of rain. At once rank and perfumed, the breath of Kashyyyk’s perilous and impenetrable underworld made his head swim. Nearby, a pair of kroyie birds rode updrafts in an oblique ray of sunlight.
    With deliberate intent Han let go of a piece of wroshyr bark he had been turning about in his hands and watched it fall from sight. That section of the bridge lacked anything in the way of a railing, and nothing stood between him and the abyss.
    “You’ll want to watch that first step, flyboy,” Leia said from behind him.
    Han gave a start but didn’t turn around. “Funny thing is, ground zero’s always a lot closer than you